The Wedding That Could've Been
by Burnout Black
Summary: At some point in life, he would've considered the wedding to be perfect. But that was so long ago, and there was no time now. Byakuya realizes what it means to love once and never again. [ByakuRuki]
1. 1: Prologue

Author's Note: I wrote this because it appeared to me, at least, that a marriage between Rukia and Byakuya would have never been a successful or happy one. There are some that would argue that eventually, Rukia would've thawed his heart out because of her inner fire...but it is more than likely that her inner fire would be smothered by his blanket of coldness. I have no idea how long this will be, but it will definitely not have a happy ending. Review if you like it, it really encourages me.

Disclaimer: Bleach is not mine and it will never be mine.

**The Wedding That Could've Been**

_Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.  
-Alan Watts_

"I know it isn't my place to tell you this, but I think it's time you consider another marriage." Ukitake looks pensive, as if the thought has occurred many times before but was always shoved down under eventually.

Byakuya wishes it would've been shoved down sooner because the thirteenth division's captain has a way of being bluntly honest. "You speak out of line. It should mean very little to you what goes on in my own affairs." Senbonzakura gives a little shake of her head in the back of his head, clucking her tongue with sharp disapproval in her crimson tinted eyes._'Byakuya, you know better than to treat an elder like that. He means well and he has very little time left in this world.'_ He ignores her, one of those rare times, because admitting that he was rude means admitting that Ukitake is _right_.

Ukitake manages a weak and watery smile from his position in the fourth division's bed and coughs up a spray of blood. "But it does. Forgive me if I'm troubling you unnecessarily, but don't you think it's time for Rukia to assume my position?" It's an odd statement and it echoes in the room for a while before Byakuya realizes that the man's expecting an answer. He tears his eyes away from the drops of red covering the bedsheets and part of his captain's haori to fix a blank stare outside the window.

It's winter.

"She's not ready."

Ukitake laughs, a hollow sound that rattles in his chest, the laughter of a skeleton. He covers his mouth with his pale hand and coughs again, a deep wracking cough that sends more red spraying across his palm. Byakuya pretends that he doesn't notice and remains still, unmoved by pity or remorse. "She's been ready for a long time. She's been ready since Kaien died by her hands and by my careless actions. I've already informed Yamamoto about my decision to have her take over my position once I'm gone. You can't protect her all the time."

There's a shifting of clothes across a hard, wooden chair as the sixth division's captain stands up, back rigid and a frosty glare freezing his expression. "But I can stop you from placing her in needless harm. Goodbye Ukitake." The door closes behind him with a sharp click, the wooden frame covering a dying man's last words of advice. Somehow he can't bring himself to feel just the slightest bit sorry._'Well, that was handled without your usual grace. You should just let her take over; she's capable enough. She's not Hisana.'_ Senbonzakura's voice is dripping with acid and a biting tone that drags up memories from their graves. She sits placidly in her corner in the back of his head and smiles a poisonous smile, rose red lips stretching into a thin and unpleasant grin. _'You're not her father and she doesn't think of you as one either. The amount of love you show her everyday has been dwindling exponentially since she came back from Hueco Mundo after your heroic save. Grow up, admit you love her in a less-than-innocent way and stop acting like an ass.'_ Her legs are crossed neatly as she throws back her head and laughs brightly. The sound is haunting and vaguely mocking, her pale white hands digging deeper into his mind, nails scratching out moon-shaped crescents on the memory of a petite and small woman who never smiled.

He tells her to shut up and closes his eyes against the harsh glare of sunlight on snow.

Marriage.

_'She even looks like Hisana. Same eyes, same hair for heaven's sake! She's just as small and her eyes are the exact same shade of deep violet that you and I both love.'_ Senbonzakura's brow is furrowed in a look of pseudo concentration as she twirls a strand of pitch-black hair, figure sprawled gracefully in her throne of cherry blossoms and twisted branches. _'Would it be so bad?'_

Would it?

He imagines her in Hisana's wedding kimono with her lips painted a faded shade of pink and her hair twisted into a pair of elaborate buns. He imagines her as she walks down an aisle of his dreams, small feet treading delicately over an ornate red rug. He imagines the feel of her lips against his as the priest announces their marriage to all the nobles of Soul Society.

How...sick.

They're related through her sister, he's her brother-in-law and she's his sister-in-law, he's an esteemed and powerful noble, and she's a street rat that was left to die in the streets of Rukongai. _'So? Hisana was a street rat too. And she left Rukia to die all by herself in a deserted alleyway as a baby. I'd say that's worse.'_ Senbonzakura murmurs softly, drawing pictures of falling snow and frozen blossoms in the air with a slender finger. She draws a picture of an infant, sleeping and innocent, cradled by the shadows of an abandoned alley. She draws a picture of a woman and a man saying their wedding vows to each other while a hungry child clutches the remnants of her stolen teddy bear, a child forced to grow up too soon. She draws a picture of a shrine with a framed photo of a delicate and frail woman while another woman stands in front of three graves with a red-haired man by her side.

_'Sode no Shirayuki tells me things, of which I may only speak of a few to you. She is nothing like Hisana, and I trust that you can see the differences between them. For even a fool blinded by first love can still see, however skewed his vision may be. Rukia will never replace that hole in your heart, Byakuya, but she will make life more bearable for you. You do not choose who you love, but you can choose what you do with a second chance.'_ And just like that, she stops speaking to him, quiet and as dignified as the day he first met her in his dreams. A queen trapped within the confines of a breakable blade.

When he finally goes to sleep that night, Byakuya dreams of a memory of a girl with raven hair and too-large eyes standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall.

A queen, fallen from grace.

_-And this is how the story begins-_


	2. 2: Eternal Winter

Author's Note: I've always loved Senbonzakura and Sode no Shirayuki. I know that others have varying opinions of what they look like, but I think they would clash. A Spring to her Winter. One graceful and stoic, the other caustic and free. Once again, review if you find this to your taste, but refrain from commenting if you have only brutal words in mind.

Disclaimer: Please refer to Chapter One's disclaimer from now on. I think we've established that I have never owned Bleach.

**The Wedding That Could've Been: Eternal Winter**

_Every winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay-- Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses._

_- Chris Kingley_

Sode no Shirayuki was as cold as she was beautiful.

Her lips were ghosted a pale pink, as if the Winter that she ruled over eternally had sucked the color out of her and her domain. She was nothing like Senbonzakura, noble and detached where his own sword was spiteful and dignified only in name. Where Senbonzakura ruled over Spring with a careless mind that bent trees and blossomed flowers to her rule, Shirayuki was cruel and heartless. Upon the crown of her head rested a delicate tiara, fastened from icicles that never melted, and from there it proclaimed her identity to the world.

She spoke to him, in his dream, coal-black eyes penetrating his core even as her snow-tipped lashes fluttered like anxious butterflies caught in a deep trap.

She spoke to him, and he listened.

_'That which you seek is waiting.'_ Her breath misted out in phantom ghosts, and she held the image of a frozen world in her hands.

He couldn't speak, stopped by an almost unseemly awe at her presence. The snow fell harder around him, clinging to his ankles even as he sought to gaze into that picture. The white was blinding and the cold stung at him harshly, biting at his neck and kissing his soul away. He wondered at her power, wondered at it and bowed before it.

Her starless night tinted long hair slipped over pale shoulders, white as the moon in their color, as she lifted his chin to meet her eyes. The snow was swallowing him whole, drowning him in a flurry of motion and endless winter. _'You need only to find it.'_

Her kiss was cold and it burned on his lips long after the dream.

_Eternity means forever..._

The silence stretches on, tense and unbreakable as they eat their carefully prepared meal together. She sits across from him, hands shaking as they go over dining routines that after years still refuse to become imprinted. _'Sode no Shirayuki makes quite the impression, don't you think?'_ Senbonzakura's voice is a harsh whisper in his ear, and he imagines the picture of cherry blossoms cutting through flesh. He remains silent, an answer in itself, and his eyes continue to ponder a woman that was never supposed to live. _'I couldn't believe that she was Rukia's sword at first. She was so cruel and lethal where Rukia was scared and lonely. I thought she'd been angry at having such a vessel for her partner, thought she would've been infuriated at her partner's weakness.'_ Senbonzakura laughs, a mirthless sound without humor, and fixes a burning gaze at him. He thinks she is not nearly as intimidating or regal as Sode no Shirayuki, but he does not tell her that.

Words have always been useless when talking to her after all.

_'It was a mistake to say that to her, a careless mistake. I paid for it, dearly too.'_ She bares her neck to him, slipping the collar of her oriental gown down until he can see the slim outlines of collarbones. But that is not what he is meant to see and he knows it. There, engraved in an elaborate and graceful design, is a twisted scar running through where her jugular vein would be if she were real and human. _'It is a mistake I will never make again.'_

There's a sharp clatter as the chopsticks tumble onto the hardwood floor and Rukia doesn't meet his eyes as she picks them up off the ground. "Gomen nasai, Nii-sama. I was careless." The words are carefully practiced and when she finally looks up, he sees her for what she really is: a street rat thrust into the arms of royalty. She feels awkward in front of his presence and the thought is strangely unnerving.

"Try not to do that again." He says back to her, and she flushes red and excuses herself from the table. He is left to stare at the empty chair in front of him and for a moment, just a moment, he feels regret and a twinge of loneliness.

_'Is Hisana's memory that precious to you? Are you so angry at her death that you would take it out on her sister?'_ Crimson-tinged eyes turn to him and he reads fury there, fury and bitterness that has nothing to with him, and everything to do with what he is. She hurls a handful of edged flowers at him and turns away; he pretends not to see her tears. _'You have learned nothing from me, Kuchiki Byakuya. You have learned nothing at all. From now on, you will fight your battles alone.' _

It isn't until midday when he is sitting behind his captain's desk filling in paperwork, that he realizes the emptiness within his days and routines. There is no one to chastise him in his head, no flaring temper or barbed words. There is nothing. No soft and cold hands rubbing the aches after a day's worth of hard work, no sad and broken smile looking back at him when he sends a Hell Butterfly bearing the message, "I need to stay late at my office again. Go to sleep."

Byakuya is powerful and as fair and just as a person can be, but he is a mortal man. He is human.

And even great nobles can feel heartache.

It is Winter, but this time, Spring will not come.

Spring will never come again.

_-And this is how the story goes-_


	3. 3: Discordant Faith

Author's Note: I deserve to be taken out back and shot for leaving this un-updated for over a month. I blame the inactivity to a myriad of new ideas that had me writing at an almost frantic pace for other fandoms. This chapter was inspired by the newest Bleach chapters in the manga. As a matter of fact, I will be writing a one-shot dedicated solely to that incident with Byakuya, Rukia, and Hueco Mundo (the tentative title is The Cost of Pride). It'll be my apology for having deserted this fandom for so long.

Translation Note: "Saigo no mai, haku-chō" means (according to my sources) "Last dance, white bird". Wherein the white bird stands for a swan. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or Byakuya and Rukia would be more canon than they already are.

**The Wedding That Could've Been: Discordant Faith**

_Our doubts are traitors,  
And make us lose the good we oft might win  
By fearing to attempt._

_-William Shakespeare_

She wants so hard to be good enough for him.

She wants to be beautiful enough, strong enough, graceful enough, and pure enough to stand proudly by his side. She wants to be his dignity drawn out in human form; she wants to be his muse, his fleeting angel. She wants to be like Sode no Shirayuki, cold and impenetrable as Winter.

But she is Kuchiki Rukia.

And she will never be beautiful enough, strong enough, graceful enough, or pure enough because she lives in the shadow of her sister. She knows she lacks that certain fragility about her that noble families so want for their women. She knows she lacks that delicacy in manners and in movement. There will be no poems written about her beauty or her sweet voice. There will be no symphonies composed about her kindness and feminine ways.

'_There is no point in seeking something that you can never be.'_

Shirayuki's pale lips are turned down into a disapproving frown and her tiara gleams morosely from her field of snow.

'_You are yourself and you will have to deal with it and make the most of it. Come, I will teach you a dance. And then there will be none in this land that will deny your grace.'_ She stretches out a moon-white arm, perfectly molded, and beckons. Her stance is that of a Queen unable to be denied and her eyes, glimmering like black jewels, dare to be defied.

Rukia, as she has done for years and years before, succumbs to Shirayuki's will and loses herself in their whirlwind dance of snowflake flurries and building storms.

This is how Byakuya finds her, eyes closed and a ring of ice surrounding her being stretching up to the heavens of Soul Society. He finds her frozen in a prison of her own making, still as the statues of Michelangelo's making. She does not move when he strides over to her.

Panic stirs and wakes deep inside of him. He has lost one to grief and despair, can he really lose another to Winter's grasp?

'_She is fine.'_ Senbonzakura's voice is brutally curt, edged with her unique drawl. She has not forgiven him yet.

He does not seek forgiveness.

"Rukia." His breath ghosts out in wisps of air that trail around and around in the freezing atmosphere. It is a biting cold that seizes him, shimmering with raw power and an ancient touch. He remembers a searing kiss and _eternity_ within the embrace of a dream.

She stirs, eyes opening slowly to gaze at him. They are no longer a deep, rich violet, he realizes with a pang of surprise and maybe regret. Maybe. He doesn't venture far into that territory. Regret can open up dangerous waters to traverse and he's not sure if he's quite ready for that. Rukia's eyes are a crystalline blue and the iris is a pure white; she seems suspended in another dimension, trapped with her own little circle of ice.

_'This…is not her usual shikai. She's—that aura. That feeling. She's en—'_ Senbonzakura's voice is rushed and high-strung. Her voice fades in and out of his head even as he watches with a morbid fascination at his wife's sister's suspended body.

'_Release me!'_She shrieks with panic and Byakuya's hand moves without having ever been commanded to do so. Senbonzakura hisses as she's slid out of her sheath and the words are almost silent as he says them in the eerie calm of the winter air.

"Scatter, Senbonakura."

"Bankai, Sode ne Shirayuki. Saigo no mai, haku-chō."

He watches as the world around him is eclipsed in sheets of sharp and jagged ice. He alone remains untouched and unharmed. Senbonzakura falls at his feet in a flurry of frozen petals, overwhelmed and conquered.

The ice around Rukia shatters and she falls, no longer supported by Shirayuki's protective embrace.

He catches her, even as the splintered fragments of winter cut into his exposed skin and freeze the escaping trickles of blood.

'_Do you see now?' _Senbonzakura rasps out, dragging her body back onto her throne. She is bleeding heavily, but the red blends in wonderfully with her cherry blossom trees, and he can't really bring himself to care.

'_Do you see? It is not she that cannot reach expectations. It is you.' _

He doubts himself, doubts his ability to save the only one who matters, doubts his own heart that tells him it is thawing slowly, and doubts _her_.

Rukia stirs in his arms, eyes fading to a luminescent purple that never fails to remind him of another set of similar eyes gazing mournfully at him. Her lips move, but the words fail to come out, and all he can think is that he's sorry for ignoring her all these years, for shoving her away like some dark secret, for failing again and again to be there for her.

But he does not voice these feelings and it ends up, as it has always ended up for the past sixty years they've been together, with her soft voice drifting through the clearing saying the words that he always wants to, but can never, say.

"I'm sorry, Nii-sama."

She doubts her ability to be _the one_, doubts that she'll ever become Rukia in his eyes and not Hisana, doubts her conscience that tells her this is wrong and she is so very, very sinful, and doubts _him_.

"That was a well done Bankai, but do not let it control you." _Do not suffer for my expectations._

"Hai, Nii-sama." _I will never be able to rise above your wishes._

They go home together, neither understanding the other.

The wall of doubts and past ghosts stands between them, unyielding.

Uncaring.


End file.
